A crowdsourcing effort by Russian space enthusiasts appears to have found the remains of the first probe to successfully land on Mars, using images from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).
The Mars 3 mission, consisting of a satellite and landing vehicle, was sent to the Red Planet by the then-Soviet Union in 1971 and …

UK leads the way...

Re: UK leads the way...

I think Windscale was actually considerably smaller than Chernobyl, Fukushima or Kyshtym. Depends how you rate the severity.

As far as I know there were no direct fatalities unlike SL-1 meltdown and there have been at least two nuclear stuff related fatalities at Los-Alamos (both in the US) so it's more on par with 3-mile (also US).

So no, the radioactive woopsy club is not an exclusive Anglo-Russo monopoly.

Re: UK leads the way...

Re: UK leads the way...

I remember a TV program about this the other year. The lead scientist was quite rightly pissed off because his political masters had allowed the accident to be blamed on the scientists, when in reality they were being told to advance their experiments too quickly. (We had to keep up in the atom bomb race.)

His description of the politicians has always stuck in my mind: "shower of bastards."

The first photo from Mars

Clearly depicts millions of Grasshopper like beings culling each other!

That's why there are none left now, after seeing where their new invader had crashed in from; the thought of becoming part of a culture that had to queue three days for a loaf of bread made them self destruct.

Re: The first photo from Mars

Re: The first photo from Mars

Wow. This is a wonderful find. I would love to imagine a Kerbal Space Program type "rescue" mission to reactivate the rovers. But I think that would be a long way off, as until we get regular trips to Mars, there will be little ability to recover these.